Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Nyel]

What statistics are you referring to? WW Monks are currently in the middle of total normal/heroic/mythic parses for CN (the only raid that has been up twice so far). WW and BM are among the most popular m+ specs (looking at parse numbers) and the subcreation historical graph shows that WW and BM monks are among the best consistent m+ classes in the game for 6 years running.

Unless you are specifically talking about MW only, then yeah, it's the worst healing spec no doubt Monks kind of have the opposite problem of paladin, whose DPS spec is usually bad but whose healing spec is nearly always considered part of the core raiding healer trinity because aura mastery is so powerful.

Yeah, mostly talking through the Mistweaver lense as that's my main Monk spec and the one I'm playing 95% of the time in any type of content.

[Darkarath]

There is not a single established piece of lore, that in any way shape or form states that souls have any limitation as to whether or not they can leave if they have the telemantic means to it.
In fact, the whole expansion establishes the exact opposite.

Literally every covenant has a private means of leaving and entering and traversing the Shadowlands.
Drakas Afterlive short has her spy on a legion world.
Brokers just go on casual treasure hunting trips whenever they feel like it.
We have ourselves opened portals to our very own capitals the very minute we entered Oribos.

When someone dies, there is absolutely nothing stopping us or anyone else to just ask Pelagos for directions and then drag them out of there.
There is nothing stopping a soul from just saving up a bunch of anima and paying their nearest Broker to port them back to their planet.

- - - Updated - - -



You are not.
Ysera is not an example either.

Ysera is the only soul that had any sort of bond to their designated realm, a bond only created because her pod was damaged and the Winter Queen had to push the emergency button.

Could not have answered better myself. Thanks, Arafal.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

That's...true. shiet my bad

Regardless, I would imagine their souls are still bound to the Realms of Death regardless.

Brokers aren't necessarily dead mortals or anything like that though. Draka being in a military organization would have special priveleges compared to anyone else and such. The fact we won't see so many formerly alive individuals tells you that in some way you can't just walk back to the living.

[huth]

There is not a single established piece of lore, that in any way shape or form states that souls have any limitation as to whether or not they can leave if they have the telemantic means to it.
In fact, the whole expansion establishes the exact opposite.

Literally every covenant has a private means of leaving and entering and traversing the Shadowlands.
Drakas Afterlive short has her spy on a legion world.

Hold it. Yes, of the four major Covenants that we saw, two do have means to leave and enter the Shadowlands... because that's a required feature for them to do their job. It also isn't available to every member. Neither the Venthyr nor Nightfae are shown to have this capability, however. We don't know what it is like for lesser Covenants, either.
It also isn't available to every member. Only ascended Kyrians can do so, and it doesn't seem like rank and file Maldraxxians may just leave whenever they feel like it.

Similarly, i'm not getting the sense that every Broker can just randomly open portals wherever, nor do they seem to be particularly willing to share that particular advantage freely.

And none of this applies to the souls of the recently dead who haven't yet achieved any meaningful standing in their Covenant. The ones that can leave are not technically mortal souls anymore, or, like in the case of the Brokers, may well never have been.

[Ferlion]

There is not a single established piece of lore, that in any way shape or form states that souls have any limitation as to whether or not they can leave if they have the telemantic means to it.
In fact, the whole expansion establishes the exact opposite.

Literally every covenant has a private means of leaving and entering and traversing the Shadowlands.
Drakas Afterlive short has her spy on a legion world.
Brokers just go on casual treasure hunting trips whenever they feel like it.
We have ourselves opened portals to our very own capitals the very minute we entered Oribos.

When someone dies, there is absolutely nothing stopping us or anyone else to just ask Pelagos for directions and then drag them out of there.
There is nothing stopping a soul from just saving up a bunch of anima and paying their nearest Broker to port them back to their planet.

- - - Updated - - -



You are not.
Ysera is not an example either.

Ysera is the only soul that had any sort of bond to their designated realm, a bond only created because her pod was damaged and the Winter Queen had to push the emergency button.

Again, none of what you are saying here is particularly new.
First we will address it not being known about, which is not the case as established by Chronicle. Using Wowpedia, because I dont want to search the source directly,

Until recently, the nature of the Shadowlands was obscure, with the living knowing the realm only as a cold and nightmarish place of labyrinthine spiritual planes. While many believe that souls of the dead languish in the Shadowlands forever, others hope their souls will go on to a brighter place.

In fact, we've known since Cataclysm that spirits can force a return to the mortal plane through massive use of anima. It was the entire basis of Jin'do the Godbreaker return back in the day. We just didn't know it was "Anima" specifically, just spirits.

<Bloodslayer Zala points at the temple in the distance.>

When Jin'do was last ripped from dis world, he survived as a shade, weak and broken, in da spirit world.

But Jin'do always had power over da spirits. One by one, he broke dem to his will, and wit' each soul devoured, Jin'do got closer ta' rippin' a hole through to dis world.

Ta be here now...

Da spirits be wit' us, we must end Jin'do.

Summoning spirits, and hell. The Day of the Dead in WoW is built entirely around spirits coming and going. IT's not new lore. But they do stay spirits

[Khaza-R]

I doubt there's anything explicitly binding souls to the Shadowlands. I think moreso its probably that they require raw anima to function and exist. Its possible that the lack of anima in sufficient quantities makes them staying in other realms impossible in the long term. At least, I think that's the easiest way for them to establish why people don't just go back to the mortal realms.

[Ferlion]

I doubt there's anything explicitly binding souls to the Shadowlands. I think moreso its probably that they require raw anima to function and exist. Its possible that the lack of anima in sufficient quantities makes them staying in other realms impossible in the long term. At least, I think that's the easiest way for them to establish why people don't just go back to the mortal realms.

They did explain that.
Spirits fundamentally change and lose a sense of time and urgency. Only rare individuals, like the above mentioned Jindo, that retain enough of that to A) gather and bind enough souls to fuel that, and B) stay under the radar enough to get away with that much anima, considering the people in charge are kind of big on gathering Anima

[Catastrophy349]

Discussing Shadowlands lore on a Sunday...must be a slow day.

[Khaza-R]

Discussing Shadowlands lore on a Sunday...must be a slow day.

I mean other than the Malfurion thing, there isn't very much controversial stuff about DF to discuss. That or they are doing a good job keeping the big stuff hidden and encrypted.

[Catastrophy349]

I mean other than the Malfurion thing, there isn't very much controversial stuff about DF to discuss. That or they are doing a good job keeping the big stuff hidden and encrypted.

There's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that they are keeping quite a bit of story stuff encrypted which is SO awesome.

[Xilurm]

There's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest that they are keeping quite a bit of story stuff encrypted which is SO awesome.

And worrisome. Mostly worrisome.

[Nymrohd]

I mean other than the Malfurion thing, there isn't very much controversial stuff about DF to discuss. That or they are doing a good job keeping the big stuff hidden and encrypted.

Honestly the biggest controversy is comparing the state of different class talent trees. I am fairly disappointed with my main's tree for sure and wish they could make it look anything like shaman.

[Catastrophy349]

And worrisome. Mostly worrisome.

What's worrisome? If your answer is "not knowing what crap they could possibly come up with to ruin the lore" then you are wrong. Keeping story hidden (regardless of what it is) is FAR superior to spoiling ALL of it on the PTR/Alpha/Beta.

[Xilurm]

What's worrisome? If your answer is "not knowing what crap they could possibly come up with to ruin the lore" then you are wrong. Keeping story hidden (regardless of what it is) is FAR superior to spoiling ALL of it on the PTR/Alpha/Beta.

I'd agree if this was FFXIV. But it's not. Actually this is pretty specific to WoW. I don't know any other popular video game franchise that has writers that handle the story with such indifference and makes the fanbase so divided.

[Nymrohd]

I'd agree if this was FFXIV. But it's not. Actually this is pretty specific to WoW. I don't know any other popular video game franchise that has writers that handle the story with such indifference and makes the fanbase so divided.

I mean on rare occasion we've managed to get them to slightly moderate frankly insulting storylines (Vol'jin and the Alliance before SoO? Tyrande Night Warrior going from absolutely useless to only moderately useless in Darkshore?)

[Shrouded]

I'd agree if this was FFXIV. But it's not. Actually this is pretty specific to WoW. I don't know any other popular video game franchise that has writers that handle the story with such indifference and makes the fanbase so divided.

I agree, but I also don't think it matters if it's encrypted or not in that sense - there's nothing we can do or say to affect it anyway. I'd much rather have the story beats (and mostly everything else, tbh) encrypted, even if they end up being disappointing. Better than to have everyone know everything months before the expansion launches.

[Catastrophy349]

I agree, but I also don't think it matters if it's encrypted or not in that sense - there's nothing we can do or say to affect it anyway. I'd much rather have the story beats (and mostly everything else, tbh) encrypted, even if they end up being disappointed. Better than to have everyone know everything months before the expansion launches.

100%. Doesn't matter if it's going to be good or not. I rather it stay encrypted. However, I also do a REALLY good job at not spoiling the story for myself even when it is available (I simply ignore story related threads, videos, etc. or at-least glance over them just barely).

[CalamityHeart]

I'd agree if this was FFXIV. But it's not. Actually this is pretty specific to WoW. I don't know any other popular video game franchise that has writers that handle the story with such indifference and makes the fanbase so divided.

I don't think having a poorly-told story is WoW-specific. It's really not the sacrilegious travesty of fiction that people like to blow it up as.

I agree that it's better for them to keep as much under wraps as they can. Blizzard doesn't really gain anything worthwhile by being fully transparent about every major endgame story beat with this community just because they've been telling a bad story recently. Some teasers and synopses of the zones are more than enough. Keep the rest encrypted until launch, there's no reason not to.

[Nebron]

So, I love everyone’s response to this question so far and some really good ideas. However, here’s my opinion on lore/bosses/etc.

Personally, I hate the whole “big bad of an expansion” and “defeat big bad at the end of the expansion” theme. What would I prefer? Regardless of your personal feelings on Garrosh, Guldan, and Sylvanas, something I really liked about these characters was the fact that they were built up over the course of an expansion and moved into the next.

For example, Sargeras and the Burning Legion. It was SO cool to see that story build up in WC3, then we had the Burning Crusade, Wrathion questline in MoP, WoD Guldan and HFC ending, and finally, the Legion expansion and Argus.

Then, there’s Zovaal (the complete opposite). His character was basically “rickrolled” onto us at the VERY end of BFA (kind of), then introduced “properly” in SL and, unfortunately, discarded in SL (the same expansion), too. This felt awful.

What I don’t want to see in Dragonflight is another SL “big bad then kill”, and instead, a Burning Legion, Sylvanas, Guldan, or Garrosh situation where maybe Murozond is finally introduced and takes us into 11.0 similarly to Garrosh (MoP to WoD) and Guldan (WoD to Legion), and Sylvanas (BFA to SL). That would be awesome, again, IMO.

Hmm, I'm somewhere in the middle
I like the seemless transitions between expansions. On the other hand, I don;t believe that MMORPG is not a proper genre to tell ambitious and mysterious stories, since the timespan between content deliveries is just way too broad. At some point I simply lose interest, especially when the storywriting is poor and too complex to keep track on that.
That's why "big bads" come handy. You can still introduce a character, develop it and put it to the final rest within a single expansion. Better - you can do that within a single PATCH (Lei Shen). On top of that, have secondary characters, leave some breadcrumbs, to lead the story into another expansion.

Zovaal is just a bad example - it was a lackluster, one-dimensional character, which served no other goal than to be a "big bad".
But then... Sylvanas - she was being developed since the beginning of Legion - just to become a total failure and possibly the biggest disappointment I ever experienced in this game storywise.

I guess there's a middle ground

[Makorus]

WoWs story would be better if they just didn't give a shit about the whiny playerbase complaining about "unfair treatment" or "I don't care about that character" and just told a coherent story without changing it 5000 times because baby Timmy doesn't like Sylvanas and wants more Arthas and how it's not fair that the Night Elf tree burns down.